For those of you that have been under a rock for the past five years, Brooklyn, NY is something of a hot-bed of activity when it comes to learning about food traditions and methods. Standing on the shoulders of culinary giants all over the country, many lifetime and transplanted Brooklynites alike have found a welcoming and supportive environment to grow new ideas and businesses related to re-invigorating our culture with this knowledge.
And those seeds are growing some amazing resources and ideas. Some might say that the East Coast has taken the lead in blending the self-reliant hippie days of the 60’s & 70’s of the other coast with the pragmatic resilience and business acumen and a notion towards responsible development and living to create one of the most vibrant and diverse place to live here in Brooklyn, NY.
In fact, there is so much going on, that any given hour of a given day, I’ve missed an event I wanted to attend or chance to volunteer and help out somewhere. This weekend has been a Brooklyn neighborhoodie kind of weekend. This weekend, we shared a lovely evening and met a bunch of wonderful neighbors and made new friends.
On Saturday, I headed over to The Commons Brooklyn. In case you aren’t familiar with The Commons, it’s a great place for folks to share their skills and or host an event. And they now have a rooftop garden and host Foodshed Market, the borough's first year-round indoor farmer’s market.
Thanks to the extraordinarily involved Melissa Ennen’s organizing efforts, Leda Meredith, author of The Locavore’s Handbook, walked our group through as she put it “some of the master recipes of preserving and canning”. Having lived a full-year, and then writing a book, on living off local only ingredients, she speaks from some serious personal experience in preserving food and incorporating it in creative ways in cooking at home.
As a Chef, I’ll come right out and say it, Leda is no light-weight, she knows her stuff and shares it in a dynamic, interesting and informative way. She interjected snippets of history I had never even known. At one point she interjected, “Ever wonder how Salt and Pepper came into seemingly every savory recipe in western culture?” Then, she went on to tell us why. “Well, virtually everything was preserved in salt. And eating lots of salty food, leads to a very dry mouth. And sailors, after the ‘discovery’ of black pepper from the Malabar Coast, where virtually all of our pepper comes from, discovered that black pepper increases our salivation by ten times the normal amount. Not only does this lead to being able to swallow salted food easier, it aided digestion.”
Wow, that is exactly the kind of thing that appeals to a food geek like myself. If only every workshop could be interjected with bits and pieces of interesting facts such as this. Leda’s makes running a workshop or teaching look easy, and you know what, it isn’t. I’m looking forward to future workshops foraging in prospect park with Leda Meredith, a graceful moderator and intensely knowledgeable teacher.
The workshop was well structured and somehow, she managed to loop back every now and again to fill in deeper bits of knowledge in response to specific questions. I’ll do my best at sharing what she taught us with a little artistic license.
Master the Principles of Food Preservation with an emphasis on food safety.
If you understand these general principles you can innovate and create the pickles of your dreams and get started with other simple forms of canning and preserving at home. We didn’t cover Jam & Jelly’s in depth, Leda explained that it’s a issue unto itself, but we did go over general ideas at the end. Leda noted that for reference or if you really just want to jump from these ideas to canning and preserving in depth and need more info, you should get a copy of Putting Things By, now in its Fifth Edition in paperback.
Food Safety
Before we dive into pickling, we first need to understand the dangers involved in canning and there are many. This often makes the home cook wary of preserving and canning at home.
Whenever we eat, there are good bacteria and bad bacteria. Good bacteria are things like lactobacillus acidophilus (low-salt, fermented foods), lactobacillus casei (yoghurt), and others. Lacto acidawhat?, don’t worry about it, you just need to know that the good ones are ‘pro-biotic’ (read, good for you) and found in many foods you may even have in your belly right now, like yogurt. Bad bacteria are the ones that will make us sick or kill us, and the most fearful and well-known being botulism which most of us have never seen or lived to feel the consequences.
Commonalities that make bacteria problematic in canning and pickling: bad bacteria and good bacteria are both finicky and all live within a narrow range. Preservation is about making an unfavorable environment for the bad bacteria and sometimes a favorable for the good bacteria.
Mastering the Principles of Food Preservation:
Part 1, The Vinegar Pickle
Equipment Required
2-piece canning lid & jar, functioning burner, pan that will hold your pickling solution, canning tongs (optional/but useful) and large stock pot or canning pressure cooker (we’ll get there) that can hold enough boiling water to safely submerge your jars in boiling water. Vegetables of your choice, spices of your choice, sugar or honey if you desire.
A word on the lids
It is common for folks to wonder if they can re-use their 2-piece lids, you can re-use the rim, but it’s not recommended to re-use the flat piece with the gasket. The rubber wears out with use, and depending on the length of time of use, etc. You probably don’t want to go there. The gasket top forms the vacuum and that isn’t really something you want to mess with as far a safety is concerned. But stick around, there are methods where it does not matter and you can re-use them there if you wish.
Ingredients
Vinegar is the preservative and medium. And it has a long and exciting history. As Leda explained, you can dilute a commercially or homemade* vinegar with 50% water (commercially produced vinegars are typically 4.5% or more in acidity). If you are interested in some New York produced vinegar, Leda mentioned Arbor Hill & Race Farms. Personally, in the commercial kitchen I’ve always preferred Sparrow Lane White Wine or Cabernet Sauvignon for most pickles, albeit they are California vinegars.
*Important, if you use homemade vinegar, then you MUST test and make sure with an acid titration kit that it is 4.5% or more before you use it or dilute it, if it isn’t, don’t go there.
Water can be used to soften the strength of the vinegar and in the case you can use regular tap water. Just remember, you can only safely dilute the vinegar by 50% from the original strength vinegar. Commercially produced vinegars are 4.5% acidity, you'll have to run a test, as mentioned for homemade vinegars before safely using.
Aside: Traditional French Cornichons are harvested fresh covered with a little salt, given a little time curing, a few days, and then brushed off and stored in straight vinegar. White wine vinegar.
Jars and Lids: Using safely
Remember the goal here is that you want to end up with a product that is not only put in a jar but safe to eat and hopefully tasty to boot.
If your like me, you may have a few empty pickle, jam, or sauce jars lying about your home. There is a great temptation to use them, don’t for this pickle.
For pickles, we need a lid that will vacuum seal. More to the point, we need one that we’ll know is sealed. The easiest to determine if they are sealed, and hence the safest are those with the two piece lid.
2 kinds of two piece lids, Metal & Plastic
Metal
There are a variety of manufactures and all of them sell the flat lid with the gasket edge and the rings separately, in addition to including them with the original jar sets.They do this because that gasket wears out over time and use. The first time seal is the only one that is guaranteed. Each additional use is at your own risk of it not sealing, which is fine, if you stow those to use soon in your fridge, but inefficient and annoying if you are doing large batches of which you have to go back and redo a few of them at the end with new lids. Advantage to metal, with metal lids there is a convex part of the flat lid that goes concave and firm when the vacuum seal takes place. You press on it, it provides firm resistance.
Plastic
There is a new kind of plastic re-usable lid with a re-usable gasket, most available made by Tattler, available online, it’s plastic but CPA free. Disadvantage they don't show the seal, by going concave.
Wait, what about those nice glass and ceramic containers with metal rings and gaskets?
Avoid them, they are much harder to determine the vacuum seal. Although, if you are interested in them, a good test for the seal is one that works well for the metal flats tops as well. Remove the ring or in the glass top case, the clamp after the vacuum has been done. Invert over a bowl, shake lightly. If it stays in, its sealed, if not, clean up and move on.
To sterilize or not to sterilize?
If you process the filled jars in a boiling water bath for only 5 minutes, which helps to keep the texture of the vegetables a little snappier, then you MUST sterilize.
If you process the filled jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, then you DO NOT have to sterilize, because that happens in the ten minutes.
Sterilizing the jars & lid.
Place a small rack, towel, or silicone hot pad in the bottom of a large pot (5 qt or greater if you are using pint jars).
Check your jars for defects. Immerse the jars in the water bath and ensure the water covers completely. Bring to boil and set your timer for 10 minutes. At the end of the time, drop the lids into the hot water, this helps keep the gaskets from deteriorating and they will sterilize while you pack the jar(s).
The Golden Pickling Liquid Ratio
1 part Vinegar:1 part water or 1 part vinegar
In the example at Leda’s workshop yesterday, she used a ratio of ⅔ vinegar to ⅓ water, because it meets the minimum of 50%, so you can play with it to your taste, in that range.
Some good rules of pickling to stick by
Load sideways when packing food in. So tightly packed, it doesn't float. floating leads to discoloration and quality detriment.
Food must be below the liquid/brine and leave 1/2-1" of space. Typically the bottom rim. Moral, cut the ingredients to be short enough to not stick out. Tricky for florets and other oddly shaped vegetables, save large pieces to pack at end and submerged the contents.
Seasonings are personal. Use any herbs, garlic, or favorite spice mix. Play, experiment, taste and try again. Have fun! Keep in mind, pickles age well (within reason). Your pickle a day later, hasn’t matured in flavors. Try them a week or more later for complete flavor development.
Processing the pickle:
1. Place a small rack or towel in the bottom of the pot you are using to prevent vibration and cracking of jars.
2. Bring enough water to completely cover the jar(s) you are canning, to a boil. Sterilize your jars depending on aforementioned guidelines. Leave in the water for up to one hour before you need to re-sterilize or use.
3. Make your pickling solution, with the spices you have selected in the solution. If you aren’t a fan of lose spices, tie them in a small piece of cheesecloth and place that in there. The flavors will be just as intense.
4. Bring solution to boil.
5. Fill the jars with your veg, cut to length no higher than ½” below the top of your jar. Jam it in there tight.
6. Pour solution over vegetables.
7. Place flat, gasket lids on jars. Loosely fasten threaded rim.
8. Using the canning tongs, lower your jars into the boiling water, quickly and carefully, leaving a little room to prevent bumps and cracking of glass between jars.
9. Set the timer for 10 minutes if not sterilized jars and 5 for sterilized jars.
10. Remove from bath and cool at room temperature and try not to jostle or move. Hot water sloshed could loosen the seal on the gasket.
11.When the lid feels stiff and doesn’t yield to pressure, the vacuum is complete. This is sometimes accompanied by the ‘popping’ noise from the convex lid going concave on the metal lids. The plastic lids should feel firm but will still be convex.
12. Store until needed in a cool dark place. Room temperature is fine.
Wait, my grandmother used to put wax on top of jams an jellies when she canned, is that necessary?
Paraffin wax keeps air out in sugar preserving, only for sweets, and it isn’t foolproof.
Pickles aren’t just snacks
Try and integrate them into your main course cooking. Pickle things that you wouldn’t ordinarily. Pickled vegetables can add the acidity you need to heighten your cooking. Add some pickled Swiss chard stems or carrots to sauté instead of a splash of vinegar or lemon juice, things like that.
Also, as I brought up in class and Leda highlighted as well, pickling juice has been used by folks to aid in digestion and as a beverage for years. Try it out, we did in Turkey and it was actually rather good. Especially with spicy food and or liquor.
Safety note
On Botulism. The only way to get botulism is to confuse the foods that can be processed without a pressure cooker canning, botulism survives boiling water, but cannot live in acidic or dehydration. Any non-acidic vegetable must be pressurized. Fruits are safe without pressure. Caveat, All vinegar pickles are safe, the acid destroys the bacteria. That is why we went through all that trouble. Veggies not pickled are not.
A word on tomatoes
Tomatoes sit on the line of acidity. Especially these days. Tomatoes used to be more acidic, but here in the states, we’ve bread our tomatoes to be on the sweeter side over the past 100-150 years. A ripe tomato used to be acidic enough to can without pressure.
To be safe on pickling tomatoes
1 tsp of vinegar per pint with any tomato and water will keep you safe. You don’t have to pickle them completely.
Shelf Life of Pickled Veggies or Fruit
Within 1 year quality heads south, so if you are interested in flavor and nutritional value, eat before then. In theory, it should last safely for many years. Opened pickles, 3 month maximum when refrigerated. If you think it has gone bad,its really cloudy,foamy moldy, or stinky, don’t eat it.
Wait, in what case do I want to pressure can?
Pressure canning is for vegetables stored in water with no low-acidity, not pickling, and animal proteins. Downside of pressure canning is it takes away flavor and nutritional value.
A little history of Pressure canning
Perhaps, the most daunting of preservation methods revealed. Pressure canning is the big hitter of food preservation, especially from an industrial scale mechanization perspective. Where would we be without canned fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood?
Seriously, all jabs aside about canned food, this is the stuff meals were made of on the battle fields for the last 200 years. It was invented by French chef Nicholas Appert* in 1795 and perfected and winning awards by 1810, killing soldiers here and there along the way from botched batches. Preserving by heat and pressurization fundamentally shaped the imperial expansion that explode over the 19th century with the invention of industrialization. *
We won’t go into detail about the procedures for pressure canning because others have done it better.
Mastering the Principles of Food Preservation: Part 2, Salt Pickling
I like to think of this as the professional chefs secret weapon and the home cooks delight.
Lacto-Fermentation, Salt pickling with a Salt Solution
Advantage, food is unbelievably good for you for digestion. Super healthy. Lacto-Fermented have more vitamin c than raw veggies. Dilly beans is one the most commonly available versions of this kind of preserving, very popular item in the local green markets these days.
Ingredients
Water
Water quality is paramount. Leda recommends using filtered water whenever possible for lacto-fermentation. Chlorine and additives in tap water can change the flavor and are unfriendly to the good bacteria.
Personally, I boil tap water and let it come to room temperature or sit overnight and this usually removes chlorine and other chemicals that evaporate that are in our tap water. Also, solar water disinfection can be used to rid bad bacteria, six hours in a glass or PET certified plastic bottle in direct sun or two days in partial daylight will kill most harmful bacteria. But filtered water is probably your easiest alternative.
Salt
Types of salt, coarse, kosher works well. No iodized, it turns the food brown. If you are a purist be aware that Kosher salt contains anti-caking agents, that's why your salt flows well in the humidity.
Vegetables and Fruit Salt Pickling
Pickling in salt solution is almost too easy to mess up. Which is in and of itself.
Equipment
For this method, because there is no need for vacuum, any jar re-purposed is fine for use and there is no need for sterilization.In Crocks or larger containers you need weights to submerge the ingredients. In re-purposed jars, the lids do this function. Harsh crock, has a perfect design for this. It burps the gases through a moat like water membrane that the lid sits in. Leda told a funny story about the first time she used one that she got from her CSA as a gift. She put it in her bedroom in the corner because it was, well, homey looking and it startled her in the middle of the night with it’s burping, thinking someone was in the room. So, if you don’t want to wake up heart thumping like her, maybe leave in somewhere else, perhaps under the sink?
To sterilize or not?
No boiling or sterilizing of Jars required. Cleanly washed is good enough. Also, you don’t need to vacuum seal, in fact, you should not. This means all those old jars and lids you have lying around, put them to work with salt preserves.
The Golden Salt Solution Pickling Ratio (lacto-fermentation) 1 tsp of salt : 1 pint of water
Exception: Some vegetables you can pickle without adding salt, such as Swiss Chard stems, which are naturally salty. That is where a reference book like, Putting Food By, comes in really handing. It’s one of those kitchen reference books you’ll turn to time and again. Personally, I don’t have it, but my library has many copies of it, and I rely on my public library to fill in my reference library gaps.
Salt pickling procedure
1. Wash and prepare your veggies, cut however you wish to fit into the jar.
2. Cover with water to fill to the top. Close Loosely, it will leak.
3. Allow to sit at room temperature. For one to three days up to a week. Put something underneath, it leaks. It will start to have some sour smell. Taste it everyday if possible, so you know what is going on. Temperature affects the good bacteria. So cooler the area better, not above 55F or below 32F. Beware of placing in extreme cold or hot temperatures. If the room temperature is warmer, say in the summer months, the activity will come quick, perhaps only a day, and the reverse is true for colder climates.
4. Let sit for 1-3 days, depending on temperature, you can taste as it goes & adjust. Do not put away until you see activity. Once you see active fermentation, move it to a fridge and cool it down. The quality is best up to 3 months after it begins to loose texture and general taste degrades as well.
Using Lacto-Fermented preserves
Historically Provençal soups added lacto-fermented veggies at the end, it brightened the overall flavor of the soup, providing acidity and depth. Many still follow this practice. Try using it in this way or mixing them into pasta, again, free your cooking, pickles are not just condiments they can be use to brighten otherwise bland foods.
Some Classic Examples of salt pickling from traditional cultures
Sauerkraut
Merely slice cabbage thinly add some caraway and juniper seeds, for a traditional Northern European style, add the teaspoon of salt and the water, cover, and wait about 3 days.
Kimchi
Kimchi is a lacto-fermented pickle. The most familiar version has napa cabbage, some kind of radish, usually daikon, perhaps some greens (asian varieties such as bok choi, garlic chives, etc.), garlic cloves, chilis or chili paste, a whole fish or fish sauce, plus salt and water. You can vary the spices and ingredients as you wish. If you don’t want to fish, don’t put it in, although it adds umami to the pickle.
Of note
If you have fresh cabbage it has enough water to completely salt pack with no water. One of the many advantages to eating seasonally and preserving during season. Back when water wasn’t so easily charmed out of taps, any effort to conserve it was noticed and put in place. Perhaps we can learn a little something her for our own attempts.
Aside: Leda’s Martha Moment
Leda hesitantly shared a awkward moment on her ‘first and last’ appearance on The Martha Stewart show, when Leda was explaining the difficulty of the end of season options as winter merges with spring, Martha waxed poetic on how “she must get a root cellar...everyone must have a root cellar”, and Leda putting her foot in her mouth said that, her apartment being the size it is in Brooklyn, her fridge is her root cellar. I laughed out loud having been inside a few homes in Martha’s hometown (Visualize a ridiculously huge farmhouse like hotel, now turn it into a home for one family, yea, that big. This is the kind of stuff that makes workshops like this keep us interested in the topic, a lot of folks could benefit from stories like this.
Chutney, lacto-fermented
Most of us are familiar with the jammy sweet and sour version of chutney, and while that is an exceptional condiment you can also make a chutney with fresh fruit and vegetables without cooking them into that sweet and sour gastric.
Equipment
Re-purposed jars again, clean not sterilized. Remember to leave the lid loosely closed until you think the activity has developed enough flavor.
Ingredients
1 tsp Salt : 1 pint of Honey water or sweetened water (to your taste)
Follow the same procedure as above for other lacto-fermented pickles, the salt solution.
A word on the quality fruit and vegetables
Beyond knowing the provenance of your food, it is also good to know what is on it. Try to use organically raised fruits and vegetables whenever possible if you are concerned about the environment and potential ill-affects of residues from chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that are used in conventional agriculture.
But if you are like us, and you live in a region where organically raised fruit succumbs to challenges other arid regions of the world do not, then you might want to consider Integrated Pest Managed (IPM) fruits and vegetables as a healthful alternative. In fact, if you buy from the local green markets and orchardists in the New York area you’ll find that most are using IPM to cultivate their fruits.
Integrated Pest Management
It's hard to near impossible to raise organic tree fruit in our environment in the northeast, farmer’s that use Integrated Pest Management are far more conservative than conventional farmers that spray from the beginning and even before they head to market. IPM farmers reserve the right to spray if needed, for outbreaks of pests due to our highly-wet growing seasons and mild temperatures, all of which while generally favorable to the fruit, are also favorable to their natural consumer, bugs, fungus and disease.
So, why do we grow it here? Our soil and water resources are favorable and you are supporting farmers that are smaller that the big fruits farms out west that supply satiate most of our demand for fruit. Much of the reason California is the largest domestic producer of fruit for our country is due to its completely artificial environment; an irrigated desert. So, hot that the natural bugs and fungi (such as powdery mildew )that we contend with on the in the Northeast is not present and it becomes much easier to not apply those chemical ingredients to fruit trees. Which raises the issue of which is more sustainable, a discussion we’re interested in but won’t cover at this time.
Troubleshooting Lacto-Fermentation
If it doesn't work, it shows signs it will get very cloudy, and smell off, not just sour. The appearance will be not slightly cloudy, but more sludgy like algae. If that happens toss it.
Mastering the Principles of Food Preservation: Part 3, Dry Salt Curing and Dehydration
One of my personal favorite books for cooking is Paul Bertolli’s, Cooking by Hand, in it he goes over a lot of these preservation techniques, but more to the point, he goes over preserving meat with salt cures. This is how exciting preserving can get. Salt mixed with a few ingredients can change the texture, preserve and enhance foods in ways that it is hard to imagine living without. I’d hate a world without salt.
But you need not read or learn how to cure a ham Italian style from Chef Bertolli. Instead, why not use one of the most practical dry salt cures of all, the herb salt?
The Golden Herb Preservation Ratio
4 parts finely minced/washed herbs or vegetables packed well : 1 part salt
This is the easiest of all cures in my thinking. And yet, how many times have you thrown out a soggy mess of wilted herbs? Stop. Keep a good knowledge of the contents of your fridge and make little projects like these from time to time. Herb Salts & Citrus Salts rank high up in a professional chefs repertoire and there is no reason they shouldn’t be in yours too. They are just too easy.
Take 4 parts any herb, combine with 1 part salt.
Use the same ratio with citrus zest and throw it into a food processor and you have citrus salt, and it will blow your house guest or families mind when you add a touch at the end of a dish, especially seafood, but even in a little homemade red sauce.
Aside: Managing the food excess in a kitchen is all about managing what you have and dealing with it, do this everyday you are in the kitchen. While you wait for something to simmer, wash excess herbs chop and mix with salt. Stow away on a shelf and come next winter, you’ll be thankful you did.
Dehydration
The problem with making sun dried tomatoes in the Northeast, is you can't dry in this region outside in the open, the humidity usually ruins it. That is why most dried fruit comes from the deserts of California or other Mediterranean like regions around the world. Turkey is a big one and has some of my favorite apricots in the world.
Personally, I used the pilot light in my oven to dehydrate herbs and thinly slice veggies and I’ve even made ‘overnight tomatoes’ that are pretty close to sun dried. But not everyone’’s oven has a strong enough pilot light and turning your oven on low is probably not the most efficient unless it vents outside. Dehydration requires a good amount of circulation, in fact, most dehydrators are mini-low-power convection ovens.
But dehydration is one of the best methods of preserving fruits and vegetables and for meats combined with salt, that is what kept our sailors and travelers for milenia able to move about. In short, volumes have been written on dehydration and you can find your own way to creating your own home-made dehydrator or buying a commercially made one, but either way, it is by far the safest method of preservation. Water is the enemy and once it’s gone, their is little that can cause you harm.
Mastering the Principles of Food Preservation: Part 4, Freezing
Any fruit will freeze. Freeze in a single layer, this keeps them loose. Also,make sure you have enough air-flow in your freezer.
All leafy green veg must be blanched to kill the enzymes that lead to decomposition. Blanching kills this. One minute boiling water and then ice bath. Broccoli, green beans or other chunky green vegetables, about two minutes.
Some say that you should blanch corn, or squash, or other similar vegetables before you freeze them. Leda does not. This is what frozen food manufactures do, blanch and flash freeze. On the home preservation front, you won’t notice much difference.
To be continued with Mastering the Principles of Food Preservation: Sugar Preserves, Part 5, another time.
Leda concluded the two hour workshop with a few tips on making jams and jellies saying that Jam & Jellies are something that she usually covers in a separate workshop and I agree. We covered a phenomenal amount of ground into the basics of some of the easiest ways to preserve and put food by for ourselves in a $20 two hour workshop. I look forward to the Sugar Preserve workshop and leave you to process and practice what we’ve just been over. Good luck and please contact me or comment with any questions of clarifications.
My thanks to Leda Meredith and you should visit her blog and buy her book, The Locavores Handbook:The Busy Person’s guide to Eating Local on a Budget. Read more on food preservation and her terrific tips in her own words over at her blog.
